In our last post, we reviewed the major changes and highlights that happened over the course of 2020. (A lot of things!)
In this post, we’ll offer a teaser of what we hope to get to in the coming year!
In 2021, balancing and enhancing combat (especially pvp combat) will remain a huge and ongoing goal, with Senzei continuing to serve as the player/staff Liaison on all combat-related matters, and Zersiax working hard to finish classleads. We will take a look at arenas, adding more of them, more ways to use them, as well as more games, functionality and rewards. Cosmpiercers will also continue to receive tweaks.
Game growth will be a focus for both players and staff. Clarification to the volunteer contract, additional structure, and more documentation for our team will make contributing to Starmourn more rewarding. (By the way, the Starmourn team will be looking for new help very soon!)
On the player side, we want to maintain a continued stream of new players (which is why Challenge 75 is running until the end of January!) to keep our community growing. We’ll implement a new way to learn about and choose your faction in chargen. As well, we want there to be a clear path towards organization permanence, and will soon be implementing a “staff sponsorship” system so you know what you need to do and how much effort it will take to cement your place in the galaxy forever (beyond just using a mildly interesting thing to promote your dynasty or clan – we’re talking custom quests, clan halls, org-affiliated npcs – well, just wait and see!)
In Starmourn, roleplay will always be a focus, so on the roleplay front, we want to keep spinning plotlines for everyone, maintaining our pace of 3-4 “big” events per year (and countless little ones). We will also continue giving players the support they need to make their own stories feel real and immersive, and continually update the code to support a roleplay-driven game. This includes things like new roleplay-centric commands, new tradeskills, multi-page datashards, and more.
Please note that this post is neither definitive nor final – we want to get to all of this stuff (and even more!), but if a better idea or a more pressing need springs up, we may change gears to focus on that. Know that we are always working hard for you, the player, to make Starmourn more fun – that’s the most important goal of all!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Enough has been said about how hard 2020 was for everyone – so instead, as is an Iron Realms tradition, let’s take some time to look back at the highlights of 2020! The things that made this year more bearable and fun for our growing Starmourn community.
January – Classleads
In January of 2020, we opened Classleads, taking a hard look – with your help! – at the B.E.A.S.T., the Nanoseer, and the Fury. These classes saw a major rework, shaking up the pvp game in a big way. We also released one of what would become the most popular games in Starmourn – Mission Control, an exciting gameshow hosted by esteemed entertainer Snap Mezyahti.
Feburary – Daily Credits
In February we brought Starmourn into the 21st century of gaming (sort of…I mean, we’re still a MUD after all!) by offering Daily Credits, letting players earn up to 20 bound credits a day. Daily Credits are a great system if you want access to the game’s fancy artifacts and interesting promotional content but can’t afford, or just don’t want, to pay cash.
March – The Xenohunt & Talents
In March, while the world retreated indoors, we revealed Talents, allowing players to extend their journey beyond level 75 and keep building their character and earning XP indefinitely. We also introduced the insidious Fantom Laboratories with their strange, unexplained access to Aleph and Betarch level monsters. Our first weekend-long Xenohunt also took place in March, which was a highly anticipated and well attended event.
April – Station Missions
In late April of 2020, we launched Station Missions, an awesome system to add more content and tasks for the intrepid starship captain. With Station Missions, players found work across the galaxy, ferrying passengers from place to place, dodging or completing mercenary contracts, and using their access to commodities and goods to keep stations in good repair.
May 2020 – Covid Heroes Fundraiser
In May, Iron Realms launched the Helping Covid Heroes fundraiser, and the collective generosity of the Iron Realms playerbase managed to relieve a whopping $1.5 dollars in medical debt. Also in May, we saw the advent of the game’s first Rainbow Parties, a tradition that has soon become one of the Starmourn playerbase’s favorite ways to share fun promotional content with their pals.
June – Discord Goes Official
In June, we took another big step into modern gaming, putting an OFFICIAL stamp on our community discord with the help of our peerless moderator. Have you joined the conversation over there yet? Why not? The memes are off the hook, get on it!
July – Staff Shakeup!
In July, we said goodbye to Ilyos, our old Producer, and began the hunt for a new coder, while Eukelade took the reigns as the new boss. A few weeks after we started our search, we welcomed Zersiax to the team as our new lead coder.
August and September – Time Crisis!
In August, we kicked off a months-long plotline centered around a rift in space and time that threw the whole galaxy into chaos. Anomalies, cursed prisms (that everyone tried to lick…c’mon guys), bizarre science experiments, lost explorers, newly explorable planets, and time-wrecked spaceships were just some of the amazing things the players of Starmourn experienced. In the end, after an intense battle, reality itself was changed, altering time in Starmourn permanently. While this was all going on, our new lead coder Zersiax opened Classleads – and at the conclusion of our event was another Xenohunt.
October – Scare the Storytellers!
In October, we welcomed Senzei, a new coding volunteer, to the team. We also rolled out a major design update courtesy of Damiel, adding almost two hundred new patterns to the design database and completely restructuring the base cost, making tradeskills more affordable than ever. In addition to that, we made some preliminary changes to our bounty system. Towards the end of the month, our first annual Scare the Storytellers contest resulted in a chilling winning entry by Kass Stareater, now located at the new player submissions page.
November – Challenge 75
November started off with a huge bonus to players – Challenge 75, a brand new initiative to encourage player retention and character creation – and it worked. With 750 credits as a motivator, the game is busier than ever, with new players joining all the time, hoping to win the prize! Challenge 75 is still going on, too, and will until the end of January. Tell your friends!
December – Winterflame!
Everyone’s favorite winter festival returned for its second consecutive year in Starmourn. Winterflame has been the name of the game all month, and players have once again thrown themselves into Akbaz care, marshmallow roasting, ice skating, and more. New to the festival is the brand new snowball fight arena, along with the puzzling addition of a mysterious fog and some void imps who seem determined to disrupt the festivities. We also said Happy Birthday, Starmourn, celebrating the game’s second year since launch on the 15th of the month. Here’s to many more!
Looking Forward
Last year had its challenges, to be sure, but I for one am extremely proud of everything Starmourn managed to accomplish, despite everything going on in the world. The new year will be a new opportunity for growth in Starmourn, and we’re excited to have you with us every step of the way. Stick around – we’ll be releasing some sneak peaks of what we’d like to accomplish in the coming year very soon!
Sparkle on, Starmourners. See you in space!
Hi, Starmourners!
Tomorrow, December 15th, Starmourn turns 2 years old. The best Sci Fi mud in the world has gone through a lot of changes in the past year. We created new areas like the Sabiak Teahouse, the Tosmar Wildlife Reserve, and the Gnomon Institute. We revamped Dynasties, launched Talents for a post-75 endgame experience, and created the daily credit system, all things that make it even easier to play Starmourn the way you want to play it. Players enjoyed event after event, from wars against the Ishvana to murders to music festivals (and sometimes all of those at once??) There was even an event that restructured time itself! We made our Discord official, welcomed new members to the team (hi, Zersiax, Senzei, Damiel, and Saio!), and you have all been very patient with me as I got my sea legs as the game’s lead Producer. Though it’s been a difficult year outside the game, inside it, we’ve been chugging right along, and we have no plans on stopping!
To thank you for sticking around, or to welcome you back if you’ve recently returned (it’s been so heartwarming to see old faces returning lately), or to welcome you for the first time if you’re new – we on the Starmourn Team would like to give every player of the game a little anniversary present. If you log on to the game in the next couple of days, you’ll receive a limited edition, interactive item and a free giftcatcher – no strings attached.
Thank you again, from all of us. Here’s to another year in space!
Eukelade
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Dust off your snowboots and pull on your mittens, Starmourners, because Winterflame is here again!
For the uninitiated – because we DO have a lot of new faces this year – here’s a little backstory!
As usual, transport to Winterflame will be available from Omni Station. But there’s something a little different about getting to the festival grounds this year…Rohna Guzmas, Firekeeper and Winterflame Ambassador, will probably be able to tell you more. Make sure you GREET her when you see her in Omni Station!
The SS Ironbeard
The SS Ironbeard is also back this month, and while whoever pilots this massive capital ship remains a galactic mystery that would stump the wisest Rek Chronomaster, what ISN’T mysterious is the packages full of goodies that it rains down upon whatever planet it is currently orbiting.
NOTE: The SS Ironbeard will only orbit racial homeworlds (and Scatterhome, since it counts as a racial homeworld. But not Glisal II or Song) and will toss gifts to everyone who happens to be on the surface at the time. You may only receive one such free gift per day.
Giftcatchers
Giftcatchers are a Winterflame tradition that evolved from the Tukkav custom of hanging gift-laden nets in the doorways of their huts before a hunt. Originally meant to appease the local spirits, the custom became associated with prosperity and generosity over time. It was enthusiastically adopted by offworld celebrants as an integral part of Winterflame gift-giving.
Giftcatchers are available for purchase on the website and you are able to hang them in-game for yourself or your friends! Once you’ve purchased them, you can simply HANG GIFTCATCHER FOR ME or HANG GIFTCATCHER FOR <PLAYER> and it will be placed in the room! You can additionally add ANONYMOUS to the end to give someone an anonymous gift!
Once hung, they will be filled with gifts sometime during the in-game day!
Giftcatchers come in 4 varieties: Simple, Silver, Gold and Platinum, with each tier containing higher and higher values of gifts inside! That’s not to say that you won’t luck out if you stick with the Simple giftcatchers, though – they have a chance to contain all the gifts as well. After a giftcatcher is full, you may OPEN GIFTCATCHER and retrieve your prizes.
If you want to know about the fabulous new toys, prizes, and artifacts in this month’s giftcatchers, check out ANNOUNCEMENT 161 in game, and read HELP GIFTCATCHERS for more.
Happy Flameday!
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OBVIOUSLY with a name like “Cyber Monday” Starmourn is going to have to participate. So this is just a friendly reminder that for a full 24 hours on Monday, November 30th, you may purchase the CyberMonday Lesson package. The package is 1000 lessons for $10 dollars and may be purchased only once per character.
You can pick up that package here.
Remember, it is one-day-only! Enjoy!
Attention Starmourn!!! As we all know, new players are the lifeblood of any mud, and Starmourn is no exception to that rule. That’s why we are introducing CHALLENGE 75, a brand new initiative to encourage character creation, participation, and retention.
For a limited time only, characters created after November 1st, 2020 will have the opportunity to earn 750 CREDITS if they meet a few specific criteria in the first 30 days following their creation.
750 credits is a lot, and we’re just giving it away for players who manage to make it to the finish line! With 750 credits you can load up on powerful artifacts, purchase collectible card packets, customize items, and much more.
The criteria are as follows! In your first 30 days of creation, you must:
- Gain level 75
- Participate in 25 Cosmpiercer events or Arena encounters (duels/spars count, but only one per day!)
- Deposit 375 of any resource into their faction’s commodity storage.
Eligible players can type ‘newbiechallenge’ at any time to track their progress.
Veteran Starmourn players, we know you want more people around who recognize just how great the game has become. So if you’ve been badgering your friends to play but just can’t get them to commit, this might be the motivation they need. If you haven’t been sure how to contribute to the community, this is your opportunity to help both us and you out.
We’re asking you to tell your pals, email your grandma, write to your mayor, ask your skywriting neighbor for a favor, and shout it from the mountaintops.
With your help, and the Challenge 75 initiative, we’re going to like, retweet, reblog, upvote, and +1 our way to a jam-packed who list again. Good luck, everyone!
Think we're pretty cool? Tell your friends!
